"Looking ahead to 2015, there is no question that we can achieve the overarching goal: we can put an end to poverty. In almost all instances, experience has demonstrated the validity of earlier agreements on the way forward; in other words, we know what to do. But it requires an unswerving, collective, long-term effort."

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Millennium Development Goals represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the world`s main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.

Set for the year 2015, the MDGs are an agreed set of goals that can be achieved if all actors work together and do their part. Poor countries have pledged to govern better, and invest in their people through health care and education. Rich countries have pledged to support them, through aid, debt relief, and fairer trade.

How is UNDP helping?

UN Development Programm is working with a wide range of partners to help create coalitions for change to support the goals at global, regional and national levels, to benchmark progress towards them, and to help countries to build the institutional capacity, policies and programmes needed to achieve the MDGs.

Guided by the UN Core Strategy, UNDP`s work on the MDGs focuses on coordinating global and local efforts that:

• Campaign and mobilise for the MDGs through advocacy;
• Share the best strategies for meeting the MDGs in terms of innovative practices, policy and institutional reforms, means of policy implementation, and evaluation of financing options;
• Monitor and report progress towards the MDGs; and
• Support governments in tailoring the MDGs to local circumstances and challenges.